On a late Monday night in August 2020, the life of 17-year-old Serenity Sharice Shief, a Black female from Minneapolis, Minnesota, was tragically cut short. Just before 11:30 p.m. on August 24th, she was sitting in a car in the Jordan neighborhood when gunfire erupted. A ShotSpotter notification alerted police to approximately 20 rounds fired near the intersection of North 24th and James avenues.
Serenity was struck in the head by a bullet.
In the immediate aftermath, she was driven to North Memorial Medical Center. Despite the urgent medical intervention, Serenity succumbed to her injuries and died on the operating table shortly after midnight on August 25, 2020. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner later confirmed that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head and officially ruled her death a homicide. The car that transported her to the hospital had been damaged by gunfire, though investigators initially had difficulty locating the precise crime scene.
The death of Serenity, a young mother known as "Ce Ce" to her friends, marked at least the 50th homicide in Minneapolis that year, contributing to a significant surge in violent crime the city was experiencing. Her family was unfortunately familiar with such tragedy, as her older brother had been killed in a shooting two years prior. As of late August 2020, Minneapolis police had interviewed several witnesses but had not publicly identified a motive or any suspects, and no arrests were announced in the immediate wake of the shooting. The investigation into her death was ongoing.
